In light of Samirbrazil’s article about Marriage by Faith (MBF) and the fact that marriage is such an important topic (the second most vital decision of your life). I would like to run a pitch before all of you respected ubfriends.net readers.
It’s not a new idea. There have been murmurings about it for quite a while.
It’s called: ubmarried.org
Rationale:
1.) MBF is time consuming. It takes a really long time to wait to get introduced to someone. Honestly, if you think about it, if, hypothetically, a given chapter has 5 eligible bachelors/bachelorettes, when that chapter director/Bible Teacher goes and asks a different chapter about potential spouses they usually ask only about one at a time and the other four are left hanging. This website will cut the waiting time. Very necessary as biological clocks are tick tick ticking…
2.) MBF is location dependent. The world wide web will cut down all the traveling. Usually chapter directors/Bible teachers ask about potential spouses at specific chapters of their friends. Now, however, the pool of potentials will be doubled or even tripled. Just think of all the house churches.
3.) MBF is costly. Consider all the plane tickets and visas that matchmakers have to buy in order to find a spouse for their sheep. Ubmarried.org would save time and money that could go towards the wedding and beautifying the respective wedding halls or buying some yummy food for the reception.
4.) New look, same great service. MBF will not change in spirit just medium. Most young single adults in UBF already know what it’s like to be badgered about marriage. At any given UBF wedding reception an eligible man/woman of age would be approached multiple times about potential spouses. I’ve been around my parents (mostly my mom) long enough to learn that marriage is a big topic. Whenever, my mom visits other centers, one of the first questions is, “Hey, you got anyone ready to marry my Bible Student?”
I’ve also been asked about guys who live halfway around the world/country. The conversation goes something like this, “Hey you once said you want to be a missionary. How about country X? You can go there and marry Mr. X.” Marriage is difficult in of itself, why would you mix that with the added difficulty of assimilating to a new language and culture?
5.) Last but not least, ubmarried.org will keep UBF young people in UBF:) It will produce more happy healthy families who stay in UBF and have many babies.
Procedure:
1.) First and foremost pray.
2.) Submit the profiles of your eligible bachelors/bachelorettes at your chapter (or submit your own profile) to the admin of ubfriends.net.
3.) Include: profession, education, hobbies, smoking/non-smoking, favorite movies, age, favorite color.
4.) We will find a match and send that information back to you.
5.) The potential couple will exchange email/skype addresses and have a 1 month grace period. There is no pressure. They can just talk and get to know each other, but there are no strings attached. After 1 month they are free to try again. And there are no hard feelings.
Technicalities:
Here’s where I need the input of my respected readers.
1.) Should we post pictures?
2.) Should we charge money?
3.) Should we leave it only for chapter directors/Bible Teachers or should “sheep” be allowed to try themselves?
4.) Any volunteers to help spearhead the project, preferably those who know how to make websites and do computer things? I am only proficient in blogger.
That’s it for now.
Thank you for taking your time to read this.
I welcome any suggestions comments or critiques.
We’re coming to a UBF chapter near you!
All UBF chapter directors and missionary shepherds and one to one Bible teachers would be simply elated to have their jobs simplified by allowing their sheep to take their own initiative to finding their own spouses without troubling their shepherds and Bible teachers! This is simply brilliant!
I am trying to develop a different website with chameleon software and a website I purchased on go daddy but the problem is making the legal contract. The whole website other than the legal aspects should be less than $1000 dollars but I heard estimations for getting terms and conditions correctly at $10000 to hire a lawyer. If any lawyers want to volunteer to help me I could make one or both dating sites. I would be willing to pay another $1000 or less to start another one but I am not willing to do this without a lawyers assistance. Chameleon software did not warn you the price of a lawyer is more expensive than the software license. You need to know virtually nothing about programming to use this software. If someone was competent at programming it could be done cheaper perhaps because I am paying for most of the structure to be already done. I am very Frustrated to be at a deAd end without a lawyer and possibly also an accountant in this other project I started
So UBMarried is the new ElitePartner!
Hahaha, if I spoke German, I would totally check out ElitePartner!
Well, having a Facebook account was (unofficially) banned at my UBF chapter, and dating websites were vehemently attacked…
Sounds like it’ll catch on! XD
Yes because social media is so evil… oy!
It’ll catch on. I’ll use myself as a guinea pig;)
I wonder how it works to run a dating website because you are dealing with peoples’ private information. It might be an infringement of the law. I better figure that stuff out before I start the website!
Ha! And I’m the sarcastic one?? Lol
There’s so much good material to be sarcastic with, especially if you’ve grown up in this ministry. You see all the quirks. It’s quite funny.
One ex member of the ICC (which is very similar to UBF) made a whole cartoon series based on his experience. Dropouts deal with the trauma of leaving the group (and what they once honestly believed was their one and only purpose in life!) differently, but humor is certainly a helpful option.
I guess it could be regarded as humor. But likely to many in UBF it would be eerie guilt-tripping and finger pointing that such “humor” would likely evoke PTSD experiences evoked from their former chapter directors and shepherds.
Hey everyone, be on the look out for my new cartoon series…I will not be making anything up. I will simply be visualizing my life…
“The Kimchi Bible” – the true tales of a UBF shepherd
Season 1: Episode 1 – Fishing For Sheep
For missionaries who want their students to attain apostle Paul status a sister site should be created called ubsingle.org. The proof-texts, I mean key verses should be 1 Cor 7:8,24,28b,32-35. Conference title: Quenched Fire.
Potential one word’s from Apostle Paul candidates:
1. Don’t spurn being single ’cause you’ll burn if you mingle
2. Don’t feel the burn
3. …
Swipe right for marriage!
Joking aside this sounds like a really great idea, although I suspect that site will need proper marketing and its goals clearly defined etc.
Dear MJ Peace, your idea of such a forum has many good and interesting aspects. Just like “elite Partner” or other partner-seeking platforms, it sets a frame for people to have meaningful exchange of thoughts about marriage and what expectations you have on a life-long relationship with a spouse. And it is necessary not just to discuss these things theoretically with someone who won’t be your partner, but with a potential girlfriend or boyfriend. Good idea.
Yet there is still one point that lead me to think critically of ubmarried as well
MBF seems to be an Idol of UBF, even more important than baptizm or Lord’s supper. By setting up a platform like ubmarried, their Idol is being promoted indirectly cause it indirectly suggests that one must get married, otherwise you are not a complete person in Christ. And to sort of calm them down, this ubmarried forum seems like ok ok yes don’t worry we WILL get married but give us a bit more freedom…
UBF completely fails to take celibacy into consideration, which CAN be a Blessing to the ones that choose it from their heart before God. Ä1st Corinthians 7 is completely distorted by UBF again and again, or at least ignored
A page like ubmarried should also contain a forum where Singles can Chat and encourage each other to understand that they are complete, valuable and loveable in Christ already, no matter if they get married or not in the future
And UBF Senior leaders should seriously repent on how they so often treat unmarried Singles, giving them the feeling of being incomplete
+1 Thanks, Libby. Yes, treating single Christians as though they are yet to be complete is horrible, if not unChristian and unBiblical.
Those who do so likely think that it is their right and God given privilege to find the single Christian someone to MBF with based on their negotiation, arrangements, recommendation and approval.
Yes, some may do so with genuinely godly intentions. Yet there are chapter directors who do so with political ambitions and with their absolute need to be in control and in charge over the marriage and lives of others…all in the name of shepherding.
@ Ben Toh
Yes, well said. I don’t say marriage is a completely unimportant subject, but there are Christian initiatives outside UBF that have a far more healthy understanding of that topic and can help through seminars, discussion groups and activities for various target persons that they themselves can choose from. So why not outsource this whole marriage thing to those who simply are better counselors for these questions? I don’t know which initiatives there are in the US, but in Germany we have a very good platform called “Team F” – everything around relationships in general, marriage, life as a couple or life as a family, and child education
“There are Christian initiatives outside UBF that have a far more healthy understanding of that topic and can help through seminars, discussion groups and activities for various target persons that they themselves can choose from. So why not outsource this whole marriage thing to those who simply are better counselors for these questions?”
Good point, Libby. UBF definitely has to do some outsourcing and not just on the topic of singleness/celibacy, sometimes I feel like simple things like conferences/weddings/baptisms are so difficult because UBF just doesn’t have the training or know-how/protocol to carry out those elementary services of a church. In UBF everything is so cheap, no one gets paid for the huge work they do, and thus so many things are low quality and done last minute. I still cringe when I walk in the center HQ and see the basement. It needs to be upgraded badly. Physical changes as well as theological changes need to be made desperately, but I don’t think UBF is ready for that. And I’ve heard with my own ears many ubfers saying this statement, “UBF is not ready for that”. I never know when they’ll be “ready” but it will be too late by then.
You mention “Team F” in Germany, that sounds like an amazing forum. In the US the idea of marital status NOT being the determining factor of your efficacy in the church is very slowly beginning to appear. It’s quite ridiculous, when you think of all the singles in the early church, Jesus Christ, St. Paul, etc. Singles have the ability to take risks and the mobility that married families do no have, like maneuvering a jet as opposed to a train.
Recently we had a speaker at my school whose research is devoted to single missionaries in the mission field. They stay longer and go to places that are more difficult. And yet many of my classmates are not considered fit for ministry until they get married. Mission boards don’t want them.
Or people say, “You’re so nice, why aren’t you married?” As if marriage were the ultimate reward, the trophy, that one receives for crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s in the spiritual sense.
I agree with you and David Weed that singleness needs to be a topic readdressed. I know certain men in UBF who should never have gotten married because they love the Lord too much. I know that sounds ironic, but once one has a family there are certain ministries one can no longer do. 1 Timothy 3 talks of overseers in the church. They must manage their families WELL. Children are God given disciples. Of course a parent does not have sole responsibility for the faith of their child, but children should have love and respect for their parents and not bitterness because of the neglect.
I am getting off track, but I write this to say that singleness/celibacy is a very important time in one’s life and it should not be underrated. Singles in the church play a vital role. They need to live it up.
Thanks for your remarks MJ Peace. This sounds like a real sad story that mission boards don’t want your unmarried classmates as missionaries. It is a mistake to think like that, in my opinion. Paul and Jesus were singles, and single people can be a big benefit to a mission. Married couples can, too, and even families, of course! but singles are a big blessing in mission i think which is so much underrated nowadays …
The Team F i was talking about offers many seminars from time to time, one of them is “How to find your direction in marriage” in the sense of: common goal, mission. It can be an exciting topic if carried out properly, not like UBF tracing your way beforehand as “lifelong campus workers”. Who knows if God wants to use u / me in a non-academic setting? No one has the right to exclude that. UBF sadly enough thinks very one-side
http://servantsoftheword.org/
i found this
refreshingly interesting to the topic 🙂
http://servantsoftheword.org/our-call/singleness
sorry for bothering u again – here is the right page about singleness
Wow, the servants of the word are intense. I’ll read more about them. Thank you for sharing!